Hello and Happy Thursday!
Now that we have talked about SCR 4006, we thought we would talk about Senate Bill SB 2331.
This bill was drafted for us by Holly Bice from Bice Policy Group, who has been hired by CHWHA to head of our Government Relations team. Holly is amazing at writing legislation! Once we had a copy that we liked, we sent it off to our legislators. They looked at it and came back with changes they wanted to see in order to support the bill.
A few notable changes they made to our original bill included making the committee smaller, taking out extra advocates we had listed and less representation from our North Dakota universities.
The amount of the fiscal note attached to this legislation also changed. That was noted that during Senator Boschee’s testimony.
SB 2331 was modeled after something similar that has already been done successfully in the state of Colorado. Holly worked on that legislation as well when she was part of American Wild Horse Conservation.
You can learn more about the Colorado Wild Horse Working Group on their website here: https://ag.colorado.gov/animal-health/colorado-wild-horse-management-support
Our biggest reason for working on forming this group goes back to Governor Burgum’s speech in January of 2023. He offered the ANY resources that we have in the state of North Dakota to Theodore Roosevelt National Park to allow the horses to stay. I can personally say that his office continued to make this offer to the park until his last days in office.
The ONLY counter offer his office EVER received from the park was for the state of North Dakota to take ownership of the horses, move them out of TRNP and into a state park where they could manage the horses in whatever way they chose.
The Colorado working group, and what was proposed for North Dakota, takes stakeholders from every aspect of the state and brings them together with the BLM (in our case it would be the National Park Service) and discusses the best options for the management of the wild horses in their state.
This is equally important because the two other wild horse herds that reside in national parks that have federal protection both call on an organization to help the park manage the horses. Since this is written in federal legislation, the parks have no choice – they HAVE TO work with those organizations.
That is where we feel the Colorado model falls short – there is no federal legislation that makes the BLM HAVE TO listen to the wishes of the state.
That is why we also drafted and worked with our legislators to introduce a “companion bill” to SB 2331 – SCR 4006 – the resolution asking for federal protection.
We also shared information about the Colorado working group with then Governor Burgum’s office. In an interview with a local reporter before he left to take on his NEW position as Secretary of the Interior, he talked about the Colorado working group. He said they were looking at what they were doing in Colorado and that he liked the “innovative approach” instead of more federal regulation.
Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates submitted written testimony for SB 2331 and testified in person, just as we did for SCR 4006.
We KNEW the SCR 4006 would more than likely pass without an issue.
SB 2331 is something new. Unlike the resolution, this would create a new state law and a new working group.
NEW is not always easy to sell. We knew from the start that this would be the harder bill to get passed.
Knowing I would not have more than 5 minutes to testify, I began preparing to be able to share as much information as possible with the committee.
First, CHWHA had a Call to Action around this. We asked all of you to send emails to the committee in the few short days we had before public testimony, and let them know you wanted SB 2331 to pass. This CTA was in addition to all of you who took the time to submit written testimony.
The committee received THOUSANDS of emails from all of you!
Next, I set up a meeting with Committee Chair Kristin Roers the day BEFORE the hearing. This allowed me to talk one on one with her, explain the legislation a little further and answer her questions.
To prepare for the meeting with her and our testimony before the committee, I put together a binder full of documentation supporting the need for oversight with respect to the management of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park wild horses.
The binder outlined many of the “significant concerns” raised in SCR 4006.
You can read our full testimony on the state’s legislative website here: https://ndlegis.gov/assembly/69-2025/regular/bill-testimony/bt2331.html?bill_year=2025&bill_number=2331
ALL the testimony for every piece of legislation becomes part of the public record and can be viewed by anyone.
CHWHA also reached out to subject matter experts: Sandra Hagen Solin, who is part of the Colorado Wild Horse Working Group, Erik Molvar, Executive Director and Wildlife Biologist from Western Watersheds Project, Dr. Castle McLaughlin – the only person who has done extensive research on the history of this herd and Holly Bice, head of our Government Relations team from Bice Policy Group to testify in favor of SB 2331.
I can say that Chair Roers was happy to hear that we tried to coordinate the testimony for SB 2331. Our legislators are on a tight schedule so our attempts to streamline the testimony were appreciated.
Because of my conversations with her before the hearing, the next day during the public testimony, Chair Roers consulted with me about who should testify next, as the committee worked to keep their time schedule. This helped make sure the subject matter experts I lined up were able to share their knowledge with the committee.
Chair Roers was giving SB 2331 30 minutes in front of her committee. By the time the testimony was over, she gave us a generous 50 minutes – almost twice as much time as she had originally planned.
This is also why I kept asking everyone to let me know if they were planning to testify either in person or virtually. There were a number of people signed on to testify virtually in favor of SB 2331 that never let us know about their plans. Hopefully what they planned to discuss was shared by the other subject matter experts who did work with CHWHA.
After all was said and done, the committee vote was a 4-2 “DO NOT PASS” on SB 2331.
That meant that when the bill went to the Senate floor, the Senator that was chosen to carry the bill to the senate floor would discuss the bill, talk about testimony they received, and then let the other senators know that the committee gave the bill a “DO NOT PASS” and they would encourage the other senators to do the same.
That carries A LOT of weight when it comes time to vote!
CHWHA stayed busy!
We were back at the ND Capitol lobbying senators. We passed out flyers and did our best to talk to as many senators as possible trying to explain why they should vote “YAY” for SB 2331, despite the committee’s recommendations.
I CAN tell you that SB 2331 did not fail for lack of CHWHA’s efforts to get it passed. We hope you can see how much went into trying to get both of these bills passed for us! We did more than simply show up to testify virtually or submit written testimony and hope for the best.
Senator Boschee also gave a compelling speech on the senate floor urging his peers to vote “Green” for SB 2331.
The senate voted 14-33 against SB 2331.
The bill failed.
Unlike SCR 4006, SB 2331 DOES NOT go to the ND House for committee hearings and floor votes. It died right there on the ND Senate Floor on February 12, 2025.
We will not get another chance for this to be put before our legislators until 2027!
Why did it fail?
The biggest reason is that Theodore Roosevelt National Park is part of the Department of the Interior – a federal agency. States have no jurisdiction over federal agencies. The state also did not believe that the park would really “come to the table” and be willing to work with the state or listen to the state’s subject matter experts.
That is incredibly sad when you say it out loud.
The committee also felt that with Secretary Burgum now in his position at the Department of the Interior, and knowing he has a clear understanding of the importance of the wild horses in TRNP to the state of North Dakota, they felt this was better handled by him and his new office.
They also could not see, no matter how many times we explained, that 1, Burgum will not be Secretary of the Interior forever and we need to take advantage of the position he is in NOW and 2, federal legislation would give the power the committee felt was lacking to the working group.
There also have been different unrelated committees set up over the course of North Dakota’s history and this committee specifically was currently hearing testimony to try to disband some of those committees. This didn’t help the prospect of starting another new committee.
So, SCR 4006 moves forward and SB 2331 does not.
What does this mean for our work for federal legislation?
NOTHING!
Our work to get federal protection for this herd continues. Nothing changes for us!
We will meet with Holly next week and start getting our thoughts on paper as the first draft of federal legislation gets drafted and then presented to Senator Hoeven’s office.
CHWHA has also already reached out to Secretary Burgum’s office.
We will keep pounding the pavement until federal protection for the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park is a reality.
It is that simple.
It is also that complicated!
IF SCR 4006 passes the ND House – all that happens is the ND Secretary of State sends the resolution to the people named on it.
THE RESOLUTION ITSELF DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY GRANT FEDERAL PROTECTION FOR THE TRNP WILD HORSES!
Our work for federal protection for this herd CAN take YEARS to realize!
CHWHA is in it for the long haul.
I have seen many of you commenting that this was a sad outcome or feeling hopeless/disappointed because SB 2331 did not pass.
There is no reason to feel that way!
As we said, this changes nothing for our work AND a lot of really good things came out of this process!
I also mentioned in other blogs that a lot of great information came out of the testimony, especially for SB 2331. We will share that in our next few blogs in this series.
CHWHA strengthened our relationships with our ND legislators and even made a few new friends! We also learned a great deal throughout this process and that makes things easier to navigate “next time”!
Our North Dakota legislators also heard testimony from many different subject matter experts. This helped raise awareness about some of the questionable management practices that continue at Theodore Roosevelt National Park with respect to our wild horses.
One thing to note is that it would see that the National Park Service, including Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the NPS Regional office in Omaha, NE, were NOT at all happy about any of this legislation. No one from the NPS came to testify BUT they did contact many of our local and state legislators.
It would seem that after years of not granting meetings to local officials and not being willing to compromise at all on keeping the horses in the park, NOW, because of pending legislation, they want to work with the state of North Dakota.
I am proud of all the work that was done by CHWHA and our followers to try to get SB 2331 passed. THANK YOU to all of you for your help and support!
Now, onward and upward!
Next stop…FEDERAL LEGISLATION!
It is closer than it has ever been and still farther than we would like it to be!
Be sure to check back – we will share some on the knowledge that was shared by subject matter experts during testimony for both of these bills.
Thank you for your support and have a great day!
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